By the time the sun rose on the morning of 7 October 1854, news of Scobie’s death was all over the goldfields, and those who were able made their way up the hill to the government camp that afternoon to be present at the inquest. A local doctor, David Williams, acted as coroner. He began by taking evidence from James Bentley who claimed he had not left his hotel all night. He’d no knowledge of the young Scot’s death until told of it by the doctor who had brought the body in off the road. He didn’t mention that the doctor, Alfred Carr, was a friend of his and a regular drinker at the Eureka. The barman told a similar story, as did other members of Bentley’s staff, but a very different one was told by a little boy called Bernard Welch.
Bernard lived with his family in a tent almost opposite the hotel. As the night had been very warm the flap was open, giving him a clear view of the road outside. Woken by shouting, he looked out to see Mr and Mrs Bentley and three or four other men standing on the corner by the tent. One of the men picked up a spade before they all walked on briefly. There was a scuffle and he heard a blow being landed.
It was then that the coroner showed his true colours. Despite protests from some of the jurors he allowed Bentley to cross-examine the boy, who stuck to the evidence he gave. As proceedings continued, with Dr Carr giving his opinion as to the cause of death, Williams must have been aware that Bentley was sitting among the jurors whispering to one of them. Further conversations took place between them after the jury had retired to consider the verdict. It was no surprise to the diggers that death by persons unknown was the outcome. They would not let the matter rest, however. They demanded that Bentley, his wife and associates be charged with the murder of Scobie and that a proper inquiry be held. They got their wish. Two days later, Bentley, his wife, Farrell and the barman were arrested and bailed to appear before a judicial inquiry set down for 12 October.
This brought the diggers no satisfaction either because one of the three members of the board of inquiry was none other than Police Magistrate D’Ewes, who clearly had a vested interest in seeing Bentley acquitted. He was joined on the board by Resident Commissioner Robert Rede and Assistant Commissioner Johnston. Rede came from a distinguished naval family and had studied medicine before coming to Victoria. After dabbling in mining for a while he was appointed a commissioner, and then resident commissioner of Ballarat. Initially his sympathies were with the diggers, believing that the licence system was the root of all evil on the goldfields, but his enforcement of it nevertheless lost their respect. They could not trust him.
Johnston had also recently incurred the wrath of the diggers for his handling of the wrongful arrest of the Catholic priest’s servant, a crippled Armenian who had been ordered out of the tent of a sick man he had been visiting and dragged off to the lock-up. Instead of explaining to the constable that clergy and their servants did not require licences, Johnston had him charged with assault and fined £5, which the priest had to pay. His actions infuriated the Irish who met after Mass on the following Sunday to draw up a petition for the removal of the constable and Johnston from the goldfield. Like so many other petitions which were sent to the lieutenant governor over the years, it fell on deaf ears. Hotham did not believe that the assistant commissioner had acted improperly, but to deny the Irish a reason to feel aggrieved, he did suggest Johnston be moved to another goldfield. Rede refused as he had no one to replace him. However, it was fortunate for the diggers that he was able to take his place on the board because he was the one dissenting voice to the decision the other two members reached that Bentley had no case to answer.
Right from the outset it was clear that D’Ewes was determined to have the charges against the Bentleys dropped. He interrupted the lawyer for the prosecution and he cross-examined the witnesses, particularly little Bernard Welch who did not waver in telling what he had seen. By now, there were more witnesses who had either seen or heard Bentley and his wife in the street at the time Scobie was killed. A doctor called by Scobie’s brother had even matched the spade with the blows on the dead man’s skull. The lawyer for the defence was able to produce just as many witnesses who could swear that Bentley never left the hotel on the night in question. During an adjournment, Bentley was seen to be deep in conversation with D’Ewes in the police magistrate’s room. Shortly afterwards the verdict was announced, but Johnston did not agree with it or the manner in which the inquiry had been conducted and he said as much in a deposition he sent to the attorney-general in Melbourne.
Angered by Bentley’s acquittal the diggers decided to meet on the Tuesday after the inquiry at the place where Scobie met his death. It began in an orderly fashion with a committee being elected to press the case for a retrial of the alleged murderers. As there had been an order from the chief commissioner that all such meetings were to be monitored by the police magistrate and two witnesses for evidence of sedition or republican sentiment, there was a contingent of police present, but D’Ewes was not there. In his place was an inspector called Evans. As the heat of the day increased, the diggers began moving down the road towards the hotel. They demanded Bentley show himself but he had escaped through the back entrance and was making his way at full gallop on a trooper’s horse towards the government camp. Tempers were raised and there was much shouting. Some small boys in the crowd began throwing stones; one hit a light. A window was smashed, and another, and some of the diggers climbed inside. They began throwing out furniture, bottles and casks. Some of the liquor was drunk on the spot, the rest poured out as they were not there to loot but to destroy everything the murderer of Scobie had owned.
When word of the disturbance reached the government camp, Rede set off with the intention of reading the Riot Act. He managed to climb on to a windowsill as the weatherboards were being torn from the building by the angry diggers but before he could make himself heard he was pelted with eggs someone had stolen from the hotel kitchen.
Then a cry of ‘Fire’ went up. The fire started in the bowling alley, rapidly spreading to the hotel. The soldiers refused to attempt to extinguish it as fire-fighting was not their duty. They retreated while the police made a valiant but futile effort to quell the flames. They too returned to the government camp leaving the hotel to burn to the ground. They found Bentley and began to panic, knowing that they could not defend the camp against an onslaught of thousands of diggers. The women and children were immediately removed to safer quarters and 1000 rounds of ball cart ridges were issued. Soldiers were put to work increasing the fortifications but they need not have worried as no attack came.
The following morning, a letter written by John Basson Humffray appeared in the Ballarat Times. While he deplored violence of any kind, he believed that the blame for the burning of the hotel rested squarely with the government officials, who had goaded the diggers into action by failing to administer the law properly. Unless they were prepared to address the abuses under which the diggers suffered, he feared there would be more violence. The committee, elected the day before, sent off a petition again asking that Scobie’s killer be brought to justice.
Hotham had already posted a reward for the killers and, acting on Johnston’s deposition, had instigated a board of inquiry to look into the manner in which the law had been administered in the Scobie case. In the mean time, Rede had given orders that two men were to be arrested in relation to the riot and the burning of the hotel. As thousands had taken part in it, the unlucky two had to be chosen at random. One had certainly been there but whether he was encouraging his fellow diggers or trying to restrain them no one was sure. The other man had been now here near the hotel. D’Ewes set them bail of £100, which was paid with money collected by the diggers’ committee. Rede intervened and demanded it be increased to £500 with a £250 surety for each of the men.
In response to Rede’s contention that the possibility of confrontation between the government camp and the diggers was growing more likely with every day, reinforcements were sent. A detachment of mounted and foot police had arrived on Thursday, 19 October. They were followed by more men of the 40th regiment and another detachment of the 12th regiment who joined the detachment already based in Ballarat. In addition, D’Ewes attempted to swear in special constables but there were only three applications and none of them were diggers.
The diggers were meeting at Bakery Hill, a small rise between the Gravel Pits and the original Golden Point. They realised that they needed to be more organised and orderly in their opposition to the goldfields administration and the government in Melbourne. They could not allow themselves to be branded a riotous mob, or give Rede any excuse to read the Riot Act that would allow him to send in troops to suppress them. They would use Hotham’s own words to press home their message—that the power came from the people and that they had been provoked by the actions of the officials into the violence which had taken place—and they would demand the exoneration of the men who had been arrested. They all agreed to the formation of the Diggers’ Reform Society giving Humffray, his fellow Chartists Kennedy and Holyoake and a handful of others the authority to put together a charter they would all support.
Rede knew what they were doing. He had spies in the crowd who reported on every word, and added a few of their own as it suited them to exaggerate the danger the government camp was facing. He decided that the Diggers’ Reform Society represented an escalation of the state of insurrection existing in Ballarat, and that it had to be crushed at all costs. In the mean time, he had his police arrest more men in relation to the riot and the burning of the hotel, although only one of them was brought to trial.